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Hydraulics of laboratory and full‐scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors
Author(s) -
Batstone D.J.,
Hernandez J.L.A.,
Schmidt J.E.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
biotechnology and bioengineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.136
H-Index - 189
eISSN - 1097-0290
pISSN - 0006-3592
DOI - 10.1002/bit.20483
Subject(s) - hydraulics , blanket , volume (thermodynamics) , scale up , environmental science , full scale , scale (ratio) , flow (mathematics) , hydraulic retention time , plug flow , scaling , environmental engineering , engineering , mechanics , materials science , sewage treatment , mathematics , physics , thermodynamics , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics , composite material , aerospace engineering , geometry , structural engineering
Laboratory‐scale upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors are often used as test platforms to evaluate full‐scale applications. However, for a given volume specific hydraulic loading rate and geometry, the gas and liquid flows increase proportionally with the cube root of volume. In this communication, we demonstrate that a laboratory‐scale reactor had plug‐flow hydraulics, while a full‐scale reactor had mixed flow hydraulics. The laboratory‐scale reactor could be modeled using an existing biochemical model, and parameters identified, but because of computational speed with plug‐flow hydraulics, mixed systems are instead recommended for parameter identification studies. Because of the scaling issues identified, operational data should not be directly projected from laboratory‐scale results to the full‐scale design. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.